CSPS Poetry letter No. 4 of 2024, Winter, Part I - Tribute to Margaret Saine, & Poems by Saine, Hitt, DeCenzo and Deets

Sun, photo by Margaret Saine, 1 January 2024

           awaking to the

New Year’s first sun, portent of

many suns to come

                            Margaret Saine

On 1 January 2024, the first day of the last year of her life, Margaret Saine posted this  haiku and the photo of the sun on her Facebook page. California State Poetry Society will always miss Margaret (Ute Margaret Saine, Ph.D.), an extraordinary poet, photographer, translator, poetry activist, expert in literature and the arts. Margaret Saine was born in postwar Germany and wrote her first poem at the age of eight. After immigrating to the U.S., she received her Ph.D. in French and Spanish from Yale University.  She taught French and Hispanic literatures at Chapman University in California. She also taught languages and cultural studies  in Arizona, as well as wrote and translated poetry in five languages (German, English, French, Spanish and Italian). 

Margaret Saine

Until 1990, she only wrote poems in her native German. Bodyscapes published by Pacific Writers Press in 1995 was her first English language poetry collection, positively reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.  With poets Julian Palley and Florinda Mintz she was a co-founder of PEN Orange County and served as its president. Since 1991 to 2021, she served as a board member and Secretary of the CSPS while she was a CQ editor since 1994. She also edited the CSPS Poetry Letter, initially added to CQ mailings, and later posted on the CSPS website. Saine served twice as the CQ Annual Contest Chair. Her contributions to our society have been manifold and profound—she added lots of translations and new poets to the CQ, making it an international journal, helped John F. Harrell (then President) stuff and mail envelopes, and for ten years, until June 2019, she gathered all submissions from the Orange P.O. Box, distributing them to the editors and contest judges. She left an indelible mark on the CSPS!

Her poems and transations appeared in many journals here and abroad. She published five books of poetry in English – Bodyscapes, Words of Art, Lit Angels, Gardens of the World  and A Book of Travel, as well as six haiku chapbooks in five languages. Four books of poems and a postwar childhood memoir were published in Germany – Das Flüchtige bleibt (The Ephemeral Remains); Das Weite suchen (A Yen to Travel); Atem der Stille (The Breath of Silence); Ein Lied davon (Same Old Song); and Ungeschicktes Kind (Awkward Child). Searching for Bridges is a bilingual English-Arabic book of her poems edited by Palestinian poet and critic Nizar Sartawi. Saine’s volume of poems in Italian was published in 2020. Since 2008, she wrote over five thousand haiku and is also known for her artistic photographs, posted on her Facebook page and used as illustrations in her poetry. I had a distinct pleasure of working with her on publishing two of her books - Lit Angels and Gardens of the Earth, issued by Moonrise Press.  Her poems and translations appeared in many anthologies and journals including lifeandlegends.com, fekt.org, verseville.org, stagebuzz.in, www.setumag.com,  thepotomacjournal.com, and prachyareview.com, to mention a few.

Reflections in Blue, posted on 22 February 2024, photo by Margaret Saine

After Margaret Saine’s death, many poets posted tributes on her Facebook page. Katarzyna Sala wrote “Dear Ute Margaret Saine, Thank you for being there, thank you for your inspiration, your translations, your corrections and your support for our literary projects. I will never forget the hours of waiting for the train from Rabat to Marrakesh, in the crowded station, among the people hurrying back and forth. There in the corner, leaning against the monumental pillars: Ute Margaret Saine and Mauricio Gomes, bent over the pages of the poetry books, reading and translating each other's poems.  Let's talk more, one day, in the other world. Rest in peace.”

As a farewell to Margaret let me quote one  of her brief poems posted with a typical,  blurry and impressionistic photograph of  raindrops. 

.In exactly how many words

can you say it, asks Okham

we poets don’t count the words

unless we write in verse

we poets walk around rhyme

like a cat around hot porridge

and we wander all over creation

like clouds, wondering if

the wind will transform us

into rain

                              Margaret Saine, August 13, 2021

~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

MARGARET SAINE'S POEMS FROM LIT ANGELS (2017)

https://moonrisepress.com/saine---lit-angels.html#/

Published in February 2017, Margaret Saine's Lit Angels (=Literature Angels ~ Angels of Light) is a collection of poetry inspired by literature and the arts. Written in English, the volume includes several translations into German, Arabic, French and Italian.  Poet Mani Suri considers this book as an "elegant, wise, and worldly oeuvre, a distilled reflection of her sagesse and sophistication."  Poet Virginia Jasmin Pasalo observes that "like her photography, Saine’s poems breathe movement, shadow and light that immediately transport the reader to the experience of moving within the social fabric of her woven words."  The book presents over 70 poems and is illustrated with 14 photographs by the poet. 

Rita Stanzione, from Salerno, Italy, wrote, “The poetics of Margaret Saine is a pleasant flight, ranging back and forth between signifiers and the signified, judiciously exploring art and nature. Each element is endowed with meaning, connecting it with human  presence and human feeling. Under the poet’s gaze, a movement in time occurs that returns it to us, it tells us of other voices who are leaving traces in personal and universal history. An interesting, marvelous exchange occurs between the forms of being and their most profound abode, like a window to the sun, opening and smiling at us.”  

THE TREE OUTSIDE

Above the window sill

the minuscule stippled leaves

dance in the breeze

Mulberry trunk

cut by the window sill 

as if as if—

By inner eye we know 

the tree to be intact

Trunk reaches down to roots

where the atoms come from

roots and trunk 

spread into sky

rhizomes breathing 

the vital breath 

that sustains us

LIKE A REED

Let every breeze

caress you in passing

let it sweep your skin

rake your bones 

let every breeze

sweep right through you

Hold your body like a reed

slightly inclined

against the wind

aligned in a voyage 

slightly voyant

and slightly blind

but forever floating

on the enveloping breeze

                                ~  Margaret Saine

Photo by Margaret Saine

HORIZONS

We are all 

each other’s species

Caught in a confused web 

of fact and feeling

Lands thought safe and secure

have drifted and absconded

We are stories of sentiment 

with occasional bits of truth 

A sediment pierced by sunrays

over the morning horizon

In whose embrace we

arise from sleep

Groping vaguely forward

into a new day a second look

I want to be your deep down under 

evening embrace

Your Calypso promise darling

on the daring side of love

We are all 

each other’s species

                                         ~ Margaret Saine

Photo by Margaret Saine

WRITING ON WATER

         Rêvant de cette société/où tous auront loisir 

          d’écrire.   Dreaming of a society/where all    

          would have the leisure to write. ~ Guillevic

After I beat the ink to pieces

on the tablet

I drop the bits like letters 

on the watery sheet 

one by one

I write myself on water

spread myself thin on the surface

see bleeding shadows descend

waving and wafting

deep into the water world

Becoming algae and fish

the creatures of water

released from my mind

set out on a new life

a watery freedom

a run of their own

mending the tear in the fabric

forming of my words

underwater gardens

tribute to becoming again

a part of nature

POEMS FROM GARDENS OF THE EARTH – ACCORDING TO NATURE (2018)

Introductory essay from this volume is in Poetry Letter 4 of 2023 https://www.californiastatepoetrysociety.com/2024/01/poetry-letter-no-4-of-2023-part-i-poems.html

PLANTEN UN BLOMEN

A rose is a rose is a rose

says Gertrude 

perhaps not without defiance

I'm pretty sure she meant

a rose is a woman is a woman

The Roses and the Hyacinths

the Jasmins, Irises and Heathers

the Violets and Daisies 

Lilies and Lilians

and dozens more Floras all

Once in the South I met a woman

named Lila

Plants, flowers 

all meant to serve

green leaves in passing

with names like eyebright

meadowsweet always helping 

the proud and the meek

--Call me Hortensia!

Plants, how could we do 

how could we be without you?

[Without you, how would I know?]

We are each other’s breath

I prefer to be surrounded 

by your colorful silence 

and so do the fuchsia fox

the bumblebee, whippoorwill

the sheep in the meadow sleeping

and the black crow cackling up a tree

P. S. Planten un Blomen, meaning Plants and Flowers in Low  or Platt German, is a famous Hamburg park. 

CACTUS

On this lonely cactus

hope is a flower

the shock of a beauty

unforeseen

Beauty that makes 

the heart skip a beat:

a leap of faith

into the world                                                

2007 Fall Flight Salerno, photo by Margaret Saine

AFTER THE MONSOON

3after the monsoon

light at sunrise is reborn

drops down outside the window

to shine like stars

the atoms of the universe

in green expansion

subtle shades of pink

sparsely sown

embroidered onto the world

before my eyes

like an apparition

for seconds

tiny birds

drink the drops

the foliage trembles slightly

das Blattwerk zittert leicht

and shakes itself off

drops appear

in a prism of light

the humble photo captures

difracts

the beauty of the universe

the ineffable tenderness

of a fragile moment:

our entrance into matter

                            ~ Margaret Saine, Irvine, CA

Window, Photo by Margaret Saine

FEATURED POET MARLENE HITT (1936-2024)

Marlene Hitt was a Los Angeles poet, writer and retired educator with local history as an avocation. She served for many years as Archivist, Museum Director and Historian at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. She was a native Californian and a graduate of Occidental College. She also studied at CSUN, USC, UCLA, Glendale College and Trinity College, Ireland. As a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland for nearly 30 years, she worked with this small group of poets from whom has sprung readings at the local library, the Poet Laureate Program of Sunland-Tujunga, and the currently popular Village Poets.

Marlene Hitt, Photo by M.T.

Her poetry received several first place prizes in annual competitions of the Women’s Club, San Fernando Valley, and many awards from the John Steven McGroarty Chapter of the California Chaparral Poets. Her work appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, Sunland (2001-2003), Glendale College’s Eclipse anthologies, two Moonrise Press anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010) and Meditations on Divine Names (2012), and Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate. She published Sad with Cinnamon, Mint Leaves, and Bent Grass (all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack of other chapbooks for friends and family. 

Ms. Hitt, elected Woman of Achievement for year 2001, served as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga in 1999-2001, at the turn of the century. She published several books on local history, including Sunland-Tujunga from Village to City (Arcadia, 2000, 2005) based on columns written for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, Sentinel, and Voice of the Village newspapers since 1998. Over the years, she taught in elementary school, worked in a pharmacy, chaired committees, tap-danced, and played English han-dbells, autoharp and ukulele. She dedicated her successes to her husband, Lloyd, her children and grandchildren, her biggest fans. You can find out more about her in a wonderful interview with Kath Abela Wilson on ColoradoBoulevard.net: http://coloradoboulevard.net/mapping-the-artist-marlene-hitt/

POEMS FROM CLOCKS AND WATER DROPS

ISBN 978-0-9819693-5-0,  April 2015

Clocks and Water Drops is the first full-length collection of poetry by Marlene Hitt, the first Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, a former Director at the Bolton Hall Museum, a local historian, poet, and community activist. The book of reflections about her life, family and neighborhood changing through the decades, includes 73 poems in sections dedicated to: Children, Marriages, Portraits, Neighbors, Seasons, Small Things, Passages, and Farewells. The title captures the poet’s fascination with the flow of time, as relentless and powerful as drops of water that can shape rocks and move mountains. Poet Jack Cooper praises Hitt’s “astute and thoughtful voice” while Kath Abela Wilson admires her “confident and consistent phrasing, and exacting vision.” 

TREASURE

Here it is once again, way back in the closet,

the box of treasures collected by children.

Feathers, one huge and black from a crow,

one tiny from Felicia the finch.

And stones:

My mother’s rock from the quarry

that inspired a song “Rock of Ages,” 

New Zealand jade, a rounded pebble

from the Dead Sea.

This is where my penny went,

the one I wore in my shoe at our wedding

and the cigar, still wrapped, 

from when our son was born.

Keys, shaped for castle doors, for valises,

for piggy banks and diaries. Keys lost,

found far too late for any locks.

I remember the dandelions blown in the wind

and this one glued to a paper plate, imprisoned,

never to blossom and this Saskatchewan wheat

pulled up by Uncle Alf when he stopped the truck

to find a souvenir that last evening.

And this one magnificent marble!

What is not a treasure? 

What can be tossed away?

Wings, photo by Margaret Saine

LOVE MENDED

That old threadbare word – love

flows in a fabric patterned

with shades of crimson colors,

whispers of mauve and the yellow of dry sun.

Chopin wove love into the air,

Monet stroked it onto canvas.

That word so often patched

nearly falls apart, its meaning frayed –

until a newborn cries 

or a daughter becomes a bride,

until the lace of fifty years together

fully knits. Love unravels

until a friend perceives and cherishes,

until there is an ear ready to listen, 

a shoulder to cry on. Love is repaired

with the consecration of all the threads.

Then, there is delight in love’s stitching,

the worn word renewed

into the One Love.

Mended.

MOTHER’S DAY

Mint leaves from her garden,

baby carrots, snap peas,

red-ripe tomatoes and apricots...

As with paint pots before canvas

and her hands the brushes,

she arranges the color of the meal.

Monet’s gardens stay for centuries,

hers are devoured in an hour,

live only in memory. Meals:

potatoes sprinkled with parsley,

lamb with Asian pear and kiwi salsa,

chipotle glazed apples,

chicken orecchiette soup     

with lemon grass and cilantro,

vanilla bean soufflés, 

flour pudding, corn pones

with butter and syrup.

Her hands fashion

bok choy cooked crisp-tender,

haggis and ale, oatcakes and mutton.

A treat of strawberry ice cream,

grilled cheese, chocolate milk.

Mother. 

Warm bread, the morning’s cream,

corn cob jelly, French toast.

Acorn mush, piki, and a sprig of sage.

The maker of fine art.

My mother. 

POEMS FROM YELLOW TREE ALONE (2022) 

Marlene Hitt's second full-size poetry volume, that includes 129 poems written between 1998 and 2022. These poems bring together the fruit of a lifetime of wisdom and creativity.  Some poems are reprinted from earlier publications; the poet's favorites have appeared in print several times. Others are either new or have never been published. The poems were selected by Marlene Hitt, Alice Pero and Maja Trochimczyk from Marlene's vast output of well-crafted and insightful verse.  https://moonrisepress.com/hitt---yellow-tree-alone.html#/

I WONDER

I wonder what joy is

And where is death.

I wonder about the newborn babe

And its one and only breath.

I wonder where love goes

When it steals away,

And the place where the years go

Day by day.

       

    RIPPLES

    In my room I smell a cigar though no one smokes;

    outside, ripples cover a still, clear pond

    I know something makes those creaks

    and passes beside my face, just out of sight.

    That is the way of ghosts ― a presence gone

    from the water, from the room, my dad

    smoking his cigar somewhere. Not here.

Phoro by Maja T.

REVERIES

Enchanted

are the cottonwoods

Haunted

with the sound of a breeze

Magic

are the river rocks

Charmed

I am in my reverie

I wish

that I could ever be

Content

as flowers in the field

United

as the grass and trees

Captured

as to peace I yield    

                

WHAT COULD YOU DO WITH A BUBBLE?

A child could see a rainbow in it,

A frog could be born.

Time could do something

Really special.

Waterbug could do his

Hunting, free to breathe,

While old men sit still to

Ponder its beauty.

A scientist could measure it,

Probing its mystery.

What could I do with a bubble?

I could watch it.

That would be enough.

YELLOW TREE ALONE

Yellow tree

Stands glowing

In sideways light

Regal and glorious

Her beauty

Her message 

For life’s meaning 

Wasted 

With no one

To see that golden

Radiance

She sings

To no one

Who’d hear her

But to the Sun, Ra

The Giver of Gold  

                                         ~ Marlene Hitt

Photo by Margaret Saine

                 

FEATURED POET JOE DECENZO

JOE DECENZO grew up in Los Angeles and majored in theater and English Literature. From 2004-06 he served as the third poet laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. He produced the Shouting Coyote performing arts festival and was a Department of Cultural Affairs grant recipient. His published works include The Ballad of Alley and Hawk and the Study Guide and Poetry Primer. His poems also appeared in Meditations on Divine Names anthology (2012), and on Village Poets blog. Joe currently serves on the planning committee for the Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga and as Chair of Poet Laureate Search Committee. In addition to his volunteer work for Village Poets, Joe DeCenzo was involved in developing or creating: 2002 Shouting Coyote Poetry Festival, 2004 Shouting Coyote Performing Arts Festival, 2005 Mother's Day Brunch at Bolton Hall, and 2006 Commerce Ave Fair/Shouting Coyote Poetry Slam. In 2022, Joe was one of 12 poets whose verse was featured in the Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom anthology edited by Maja Trochimczyk and published by Moonrise Press. In 2024, his poem received a Honorary Mention in the 37th CSPS Annual Poetry Contest. 

BEAUTY AT THE BARRE

Small cloud of rosin dust

Around the battered wooden box

Rises beauty from hellish pain

A half-used roll of KT tape

Contains the inflamed hamstring

Cracking calluses, the only shield

For a bloody sock

Blisters ripped of skin

Plié - tendu

Plié - tendu

From 5:00 am until the school bell rings

Torment to the limbs

Aching, soreness, spasms, cramps

Tedium at the barre building

Strength, alignment, balance, beauty

Relevé - en pointe

Relevé - en pointe

Body dysmorphia, eating disorders

Stay thin, stay thin

Keep your fingers from your throat

Need it be this ugly

To reach the height of grace?

The x-rays say you’re ready

Determination leads the charge

Bind reptilian feet

In satin covered toe shoes

Sauté - en pointe

6 inches of elegance

The added line from hip to toe

16 years of training

For the Black Swan pas de deux

                                                                 ~ Joe DeCenzo

Mountains, 23 May 2023,  Photo by Margaret Saine

FEATURED POET RICHARD M. DEETS

RICHARD M. DEETS

After a career as a mathematics teacher, Richard Deets became the Vice President, Membership of the CSPS in the fall of 2012. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Livermore Valley Opera and the City of Dublin’s Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission. His poems have appeared online in a variety of milieus. Richard’s published articles on poetry include The Elements of Poetry online at FamilyFriendPoems.com. One of his poems published on the same site became a wedding favourite, as he stated, “I wrote the poem, ‘Our Dreams,’ as a Valentine gift for my wife. Since that time, over a hundred brides have requested permission to include the poem in their wedding ceremonies. My wife has given me permission to say yes to every bride.”

. https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/a-valentine-poem

WE SAILED ON WITH HAPPY HEARTS

            

 The Harbor wind's song played on in our hearts

As we bobbed in our baby dinghy in the blue bay.

All morning long we sailed on with happy hearts.

Sporadic clouds peeled shadows off dockhand carts:

We thrilled in trills of gulls and terns above the bay.

The harbor wind's song played on in our hearts.

We were skippers of our dinghy, sporting our parts.

Tack port! No, starboard! Buoy, port side bow! Oy vey!

All sea sun long we sailed on with happy hearts.

Cool breezes blew our dinghy to coves across the charts;

We sifted winded sails, sipped wine all winsome day.

The harbor wind's song played on in our hearts.

The sun tumbled: we tacked for clubs past marts

And feasted on mariners' tales of a bygone day.

All evening long we sailed on with happy hearts.

We revelled in rhythmic peals of mast slapping halyards

And lapping ripples mooring mirrored lights in the bay.

The harbor wind's song played on in our hearts;

All misted moon long we sailed on with happy hearts.

                                                                                         ~ Richard M. Deets

BLUE  VIOLETS 

Spring springs, seedlings struggle seeking

Blossoms, hearts enchained in frozen soil

From long-mooned January snow storms.

Assured of their entry on life's stage

As if from some distant memory,

They are disdainful of hesitancies.

Enveloped within fragile blue rhapsodies

Of heavenly petals, they fear

Nothing, blissful at their core.

Perfumed goddesses, beautiful ones,

Unfurling petals in morning sunlight,

Clutching life abound, spirits shining,

Theirs is that once more vindicated faith

That fragile life fearlessly unfolds

Each splendid spring in blue violets.

Richard M. Deets, Dubin, California

“We Sailed on”…appeared on Poem Hunter site.

https://www.poemhunter.com/

 Purple Patterns, a photo by Margaret Saine 

LOVE

love is nature's threads

embroidered in children, stitch

by stitch by a mother.

Haiku for Mother’s Day by Richard M. Deets

 

CHRISTINA’S COURAGE

 

—a piece of poetry relating to disability.

We were in Chadds Ford and talked of Wyeth art,

Timeless as Brandywine Valley landscapes.

We weighed the mystery of Christina's courage

Rising above the crippling curse of polio.

Mid-March chills encroached upon the evening hour.

Then the wind battered shutters and bent

Daffodils and chickweed, and rain

Splashed the riverward windows. We romanticized ourselves

With memories as children bicycling winding country roads 

Over rolling hills dropping into sleepy valleys, 

Your flaming auburn hair was always beyond reach.

Suddenly rain showers slowed to a quiet drizzle.

The only sound - a cardinal striking the casement window.

I stood in the cottage entry drying forearm crutches, 

and turned to see you drooping in your wheelchair, staring stainless

Braces stacked in night shadows as if searching for the child 

Paralysis free, I watched a tear round your pale cheek, and fall. 

And what of the spring day remained? A Norfolk Southern freight 

Whistle faded northward and the courage of Christina,

Which we had discussed, appeared out of reach in the rain.

Richard M. Deets

Published: 2012/03/15 

www.disabled-world.com/communication/poetry/christinas-courage.php 

Snow in the mountains, 5 June 2024, photo by Margaret Saine

                                

Contents of California Quarterly Vol. 50, No. 4 (Winter 2024), eds. Marlene Hitt and Konrad Tademar Wilk

 

California Quarterly 50/4 (Winter 2024), eds. Marlene Hitt and Konrad Tademar Wilk. Cover Art: Petals of Memory. Photo of “Compassion” Rose by Maja Trochimczyk, 2022.

CONTENTS

Polymorphic Tumbled Stuff  —  Gurupreet K. Khalsa 7

The Lighthouse  —  Louise Moises 8

Sometimes at the Edge of Sleep — Deborah Bachels Schmidt 9

In the Season of the Crows,  — Deborah Bachels Schmidt 10

bougainvillea cave — Gregory Cecil 11

An Archaeology of Ignorance  — Joel Savishinsky 12

A Noiseless Spider (Revisited) — r.g. cantalupo 13

Of Singing Mice  — Deborah Bachels Schmidt 14

Puzzled — Carolyn Jabs 16

The Heat of the San Joaquin — Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia 17

In Dreams — Brian Cronwall 18

Resignation  — Jonathan Bennett 19

A Candle, April 2020  — Carla S. Schick 20

Metal Ladies — Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia 22

All Hallows' Warning  — Joe DeCenzo 23

Without Hope  — Caire Scott 24

Lifting the Spell  — Carolyn Jabs 25

On the Porch  — Donna Emerson 26

Red Boat Remembers  — Deborah B. Schmidt 27

Gloria’s Garden Café in Hilo, February 1993 — Brian Cronwall 28

How Does a Planet Evaporate? — Gurupreet K. Khalsa 29

The Snake Speaks  — David Anderson 30

The Patriarchs Die First —  Carolyn Jabs 31

Retirement  — Maja Trochimczyk 32

talking —  Gregory Cecil 32

I Saw the Edery Woman This  Morning  — Livingston Rossmoor 33

Good Night, Virginia  — Donna Emerson 34

That Snifter of Brandy in an Irish Pub —  Katharyn Howd Machan 35

Walk Along the Promenade -—  Ambika Talwar 36

In the Garden — Dorothy Brooks 38

Shavings — Jonathan Bennett 39

Similitude of the Rock — Allen Strother 40

The Sphere Inside the Cone: The Archimedes Palimpsest — David Anderson 41

Computer, Write a Shakespearean Sonnet  — r.g.cantalupo 42

Falling Frames  — Stephanie DuPont 43

Bandana —  Jonathan Bennett 44

It Is What It Is  —  Sharon Chmielarz 44

My Place of Dreams  — Carolyn Chilton Casas 45

I Watch the Bees at the  Sunflowers — Kenneth White 46

Heart with Wings — Ambika Talwar 47

Birth — Anna Maria Mickiewicz 48

The Fruit of the Blue Tree  — Konrad Tademar Wilk 49

A Soldier’s Journey  — Ambika Talwar 50

Dream of a Dodo  —  Deborah B. Schmidt 51

Reparenting — Jonathan Bennett 51

By Way of a Star’s Light -— Cara S. Schick 52

Break the Mold  —  Dennis Ross 53

Presence of Prayer  —  Ei Sanchez 54

Disquietude  — Konrad Tademar Wilk 55

37th Annual Poetry Contest Winners and Comments 56

Contributors in Alphabetical Order    59

CSPS Contest Opportunities  60

CSPS Newsbriefs 2024, No. 4 by Maja Trochimczyk  62

Publishing Opportunities with CSPS 65

2024 CSPS Donors, Patrons, and Membership   66

Membership Form   68

 

EDITOR’S NOTE

While every poem is a “good” one, some are more eloquent in style and language. After reading and rereading each poem, I was overwhelmed with the task of choosing. There were so many wonderful works entered! Finally, after much contemplation, I had to create a tie in the third-place winners and add more honorary mentions.

I have a criterion in mind. First, I look for meaning, then language, then cadence. I was drawn to poems that evoked an incident that we could all partake in, such as the despairing feeling of giving up hope at sea, or the experience of the summer heat. In other poems, including top prize winners, I found an extraordinary use of language (especially in verse by Ms. Khalsa and Ms. Schmidt). Many thoughts and lines will always be remembered.

It has been a pleasure to share in the ideas and artistry of these poets. With gratitude for the talents of all contributors, I decided to in clude even more poems submitted to the Annual Contest in this issue of the California Quarterly. I hope you will enjoy reading of these poems as much as I did! 

Marlene Hitt

Sunland, California

As Marlene Hitt died before she was able to complete this issue of the California Quarterly, she did not finish her Editor’s Note, nor her notes for each Honorary Mention. After decades of tireless service to the poetry community in California, she left behind hundreds if not thousands of unpublished poems. CSPS’s Monthly Contest Chair, Alice Pero, selected and organized some of these fascinating poems for Yellow Tree Alone, published in 2022 by Moonrise Press, a small press of CSPS President, Maja Trochimczyk. Marlene was also able to complete her task as the 2024 CSPS Annual Contest Judge, her final large-scale poetry project. This issue of the CQ is dedicated to her memory.

Konrad Tademar Wilk, Los Angeles, California

California Quarterly, Volume 50, Number 4

Rainbow Sorbet by Maja Trochimczyk

WINNERS OF CSPS 37th POETRY CONTEST

California State Poetry Society is pleased to announce the winners of its 37th Annual Poetry Contest selected by Judge Marlene Hitt of Sunland, California.  We are grateful to all poets who submitted a total of 214 poems this year. Due to the high quality of this year’s submissions, some of the submitted, but not awarded poems, are included in the California Quarterly,

 CONTEST PRIZES

• First Prize: Gurupreet K. Khalsa, “Polymorphic: Tumbled Stuff”

• Second Prize: Louise Moises, “Lighthouse”

• Third Prize, ex aequo: Deborah Bachels Schmidt, “In the Season of the Crows”

• Third Prize, ex aequo: Joel Savishinsky, “An Archeology of Ignorance”

 TEN HONORARY MENTIONS

• No. 1: r.g. cantalupo, “A Noiseless Spider (Revisited)”

• No. 2: Carolyn Jabs, “Puzzled”

• No. 3: Deborah Bachels Schmidt, “Of Singing Mice”

• No. 4: Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, “The Heat of the San Joaquin”

• No. 5: Brian Cronwall, “In Dreams”

• No. 6: Jonathan Bennett, “Resignation”

• No. 7: Carla S. Schick, “A Candle, April 2020”

• No. 8: Rosemary Ybarra-Garcia, “Metal Ladies”

• No. 9: Joe DeCenzo, “All Hallow’s Warning”

• No. 10: Claire Scott, “Without Hope”

 

M. Hitt at a reading in Pasadena, 2012

THE JUDGE’S COMMENTS

 First Prize. With skillfully crafted language, the poet compares two worlds of words: those as lined-up boxy, dreary apartment buildings and those other ones that the poet sees as much freer, simpler, colorful. This poem is an homage to untroubled passion, feverish intent, a thirst for freedom and the beauty of creation.

 Second Prize. I chose to identify with the hopelessness of the narrator as “Without sails or oars or compass, unable to read the stars, I drift through the fog of uncertainty.” There is hope, though. I see this vivid and imaginative poem as a metaphor for all life.

 Third Prize (Savishinsky). Do we know what we are saying? Do we perceive correctly? Will the shards of floppy discs be understood after thousands of years? I was drawn to discover the meaning of the poem which ends with the words, “we mouth the sounds but miss their meaning” as in lost languages. Much is said here. We speak well now but does anyone listen?

 Third Prize (Schmidt). The black, inky crows enter the lively moment of an evolving and colorful scene, with their blackness forming a crowd of their own, the elite. I see this beautifully rendered work as a metaphor for the contrasts in life, even for that of good and evil.

 Honorary Mention No. 1. I was captivated by the image of a spider, “a fuzzed blur of legs fleeing across the rim of my eyes.” This picture of a spider, written in simple words, is appealing in

its way of drawing the reader into this poet’s experience. It is also an erudite reflection of Walt Whitman’s famous verse and a reflection on alienation and solitude.

 Honorary Mention No. 2. Joseph Campbell once remarked that if we look back on our lives, we would finally see the puzzle pieces fall together. I am impressed with the careful building of a puzzle whose pieces are arranged into a completed whole. In this poem the poet tells a valuable truth: “Day after day, we struggled to find the big picture until, one afternoon it found us.”

 Honorary Mention No. 3. Beginning with imagination, the carefully structured poem examines artfully our myths and legends and that we need them. Something list-like has become a cultural lesson.

 Honorary Mention No. 4. Magically worded, we see a dream within a dream. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” said Shakespeare, The poem carries a message of “these blessings of awakening, alive, again.”

 Honorary Mention No. 5. In the silence only, the invisible crickets sang from the dry grass. Last Thursday in Death Valley the temperature was 130 degrees F. Would that day of the poet be the beginning of a California Sahara?

 Honorary Mention No. 6. A thoughtful piece about mice who can sing but we can’t hear them and how we all love our myths, fairy tales and folktales. How we wish they were true and maybe they are. We need them. If we lose them, we will make more.

 

 MARENE HITT (1936-2024)

A native Californian, poet and community activist, Marlene Hitt was the first Poet Laureate of Sunland Tujunga (1999-2001). She has been a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland Tujunga and the Foothills since the group’s inception in 1985. Her critically-acclaimed first poetry collection Clocks and Water Drops was published by Moonrise Press in 2015. Her second collection, Yellow Tree Alone appeared in 2022. In addition to publishing numerous poetry chapbooks, she authored a non-fiction book Sunland-Tujunga, from Village to City and two books of stories for children.. Her poems appeared in Psychopoetica (UK), Chupa Rosa Diaries (2001-2003), Glendale College’s Eclipse anthologies, CSPS California Quarterly and Poetry Letter. Atadena Poetry Review; and poetry anthologies (Chopin with Cherries, Meditations on Divine Names, and We Are Here:Village Poets Anthology that she co-edited in 2020 with Maja Trochimczyk). Recently, Hitt was one of 12 poets invited to contribute to Crystal Fire. Poems of Joy and Wisdom (2022). Her work also appears in Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate, and The Coiled Serpent, of verse by Los Angeles poets, ed. Luis Rodriguez (2016).

 Marlene Hitt served at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga as Museum Director and docent for many years. She was the history writer for the Foothill Leader, Glendale News Press, North Valley Reporter, and Voice of the Village newspapers. She has been honored as the Woman of Achievement by the Business and Professional Women's Club, as the Woman of the Year by the U.S. Congress, and received many congratulatory scrolls from the City and County of Los Angeles, and the State of California. In 2019, Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga presented to Marlene and her husband Lloyd, a Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing the significance of their support of poetry in the Foothills.

"Chicago Peace" Rose by Maja T.

NEWSBRIEFS 2024, NO. 4, WINTER 2024

 The anniversary year of the California State Poetry Society has come to its end, but the celebrations continue in 2025, with the publication of our 50^th Anniversary Anthology edited by r.g. cantalupo. He will select four poems per CQ volume, one per issue. So far I have driven around to pick up boxes of old issues of the CQ from Richard Deets in Dublin and John F. Harrell in Yorba Linda.  Established in 1972, our Society should have held its 50^th anniversary in 2022, but the Board decided to move the celebrations to 2024.

Pushcart Prize Nominations. The following six poems were nominated to the Annua Pushcart Prizes for best poems published by small presses. From CQ 50/1 (guest-edited by Beverly M. Collins), “Begin to Heal” by Charles Harmon. From CQ 50/2 (ed. Nicholas Skaldetvind), “A Poem for Portraits” by Anselm Berrigan. From CQ 50/3 (ed. Maja Trochimczyk), “Allegiance” by  Carolyn Chilton Casas, and from CQ 50/4, “Polymorphic Tumbled Stuff, by Gurupreet K. Khalsa, “The Lighthouse,” by Louise Moises, and “An Archaeology of Ignorance” by Joel Savishinsky. Congratulations!

The California Quarterly 50/4 has an unusual content, in that it contains quite a few submissions to the 37^th Annua Poetry Contest, in addition to the four award winners, Gurupreet K. Khalsa, Louise Moises, Deborah Bachels Schmidt, and Joel Savishinsky and ten honorary mentions. Per the request of the Contest Judge, Marlene Hitt, these poems were published in a different order than usual (when we would add a contest section after other poems). In this issue, the awarded and honored poems are placed first, followed by a selection from other submissions (to the Annual Contest and the CQ directly via Submittable, email and mail), and ending with the judge’s comments. Ms. Hitt died in December 2024 and was not able to complete all sections of this journal. I’m grateful to Konrad Tademar Wilk who stepped in and finished the work.

The CQ cover is graced with my photo of a hybrid-tea “Compassion” rose from my garden, selected as a tribute to Marlene Hitt and Margaret Saine, another influential CSPS poet who left us this year. Both poets were fond of my rose photographs and attended my exhibitions held in Sunland and Monrovia. We shared a passion for beautiful blossoms and enjoyed the serenity of gardens. I published two poetry volumes each from these great friends and fantastic poets—Clocks and Water Drops (2015) and Yellow Tree Alone (2023) by Hitt followed by Lit Angels Literature Angels ~ Angels of Light (2017) and Gardens of the Earth. According to Nature (2018) by Saine. The cover of Marlene’s first book featured a photos of California poppies and sweet alyssum from her garden—I am grateful for receiving some of these pants as farewell gifts, so her irises and baby’s breath will grace my garden, too.

My three-year od granddaughter Juniper, once asked me about my parents, and when I said they were no longer with us, she told me sternly: “Babcia, you must remember them, they live on when they are remembered.” I wondered who taught her that, maybe the film Coco, but the sentiment is right. We must remember those who were with us and left a huge void after their departure, even if that process of leaving was slow and extended—as was the case of both Hitt and Saine, who gradually gave up their volunteer duties.

In 2021, after 18 years of service to CSPS as California Quarterly Editor, Secretary/Historian and Poetry Letter Editor, Margaret Saine decided to step down. A brief tribute was published at that time and my comments below are a paraphrase of that. I was and am especially grateful that she introduced me to the CSPS and greatly value her contributions to our Society. Her expert knowledge of poetry, literature, painting, sculpture, and architecture was coupled with fluency in many languages—she published translations from French, German, Italian and Spanish. She wrote and published poetry in English, her native German, as well as French, Italian and Spanish. She translated an international group of poets, giving them a space to share their insights and talents. After her death, many poets expressed their gratitude in numerous posts on her Facebook page. Her network of poetic friendships was truly global! I first heard about her passing from an Italian poet, Alessio Zanelli who wrote “We were good friends and met her numerous times here and there in Italy, during her many trips in Europe. She was a good poet and a fantastic woman, as well as one of the first editors to ever accept my work.”

As a photographer, she depicted the world in motion— blurry, misty, ambiguous, yet enticing with mysterious patterns. Her erudite, thoughtful and passionate poems reflect her keen attention to detail, ability to see the large picture, find wisdom in nature and art.). I am profoundly grateful for all the gifts Margaret brought to my life – richness of vivid language, sharp focus on quality of words expressing a thought or impression clearly and succinctly. 

Saine's photo of Kansas from air.

Ute Margaret Saine was born in Germany. After a Yale Ph.D. in French and Spanish, she taught languages, literature, and culture in California and Arizona, while writing and translating poetry in five languages. Since 1991, she has been a board member of the CSPS and a California Quarterly editor since 1994. She also edited the CSPS Poetry Letter and served formerly as the CSPS Annual Contest Chair. Her poems have appeared in many journals here and abroad. She has published four books of poetry in English – Bodyscapes, Words of Art, Lit Angels and Gardens of the Earth – as well as six haiku chapbooks in five languages. Three books of poems and a Postwar childhood memoir appeared in Germany – Das Flüchtige bleibt (The Ephemeral Remains), Das Weite suchen (A Yen to Travel), Atem der Stille (The Breath of Silence), and Das ungeschickte Kind (Awkward Child). Searching for Bridges is a bilingual English-Arabic collection edited by Nizar Sartawi.

 

Gardens of the Earth: According to Nature is a poetic exploration of nature tamed and shaped by humans, nature that in turn shapes the gardeners and gives them a purpose, a cause for action, and a reason for reflection. Saine shared her delight in gardens and gardening with a host of contemporary poets and friends and the renowned gardeners of the past. Lit Angels (Literature Angels ~ Angels of Light) is a collection of poetry inspired by literature and the arts. Written in English, the volume includes several translations into German, Arabic, French and Italian. As Saine wrote in the introduction: “Lit, past participle of ‘to light’, and Lit, abbreviation for literature? Lit used by people who love it so much they breathlessly shorten it to one syllable? Light and Literature, the mainstays of human lives, wherever we are, whenever we are so privileged. Literature and Light are best friends.”  Her life was a light to many. Nizar Sartawi, poet/translator from Amman, Jordan, wrote: “In Margaret’s poetry we listen to the inner voice of a poet who is committed to building bridges. Beyond the versatility of her topics, the vividness of her images, and the richness of her style, almost every poem she writes is an expression of this quest – building bridges of peace between people, nations, and, in a very intricate way, between the individual and his or her inner self.”

 Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

    

Maja Trochimczyk and Margaret Saine with Maja's Rose Photo Exhibit, 2016

Photo by Margaret Saine

Poetry Letter No. 3 of 2024 - Autumn, Part II - Reviews of Books by Butner & Moran. Poems from "The Rainy Bread"

 Nad Baltykiem (By the Baltic) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil/canvas 

The Fall 2024 issue of the Poetry Letter presents prize-winning poems from seven Monthly Contests of 2024, selected by the Monthly Contest Judge, Alice Pero  - in Part I, here. Two book reviews by Michael Escoubas include extensive poetry quotations which make the reviews even more enjoyable, so we do not only learn what Michael thinks of the poems by Renee Butner and Tom Moran, but also can get to know this poetry ourselves. 

In addition, I present here two poems from my book The Rainy Bread, in original English with Polish translations, that were read at a conference “Generations Remember” organized by the Kresy Siberia Foundation and the Sybir Memorial Museum in Białystok, Poland on 19-20 September 2024. For this conference, I selected 12 poems from my book The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile, commemorating the suffering and resilience of my family members who lived in Poland’s eastern territories and were imprisoned, exiled to Siberia or deported to the Polish People’s Republic during and after WWII. Their estates and farms are now parts of collective farms in Belarus, formerly in Soviet Union. They were lucky to survive and, of course, did not receive any reparations... Indeed, my maternal great aunts were hardly alone in being dispossessed and displaced by the Empire next door.... The Soviet Union annexed 48% of Poland’s lands after WWII and about 3.5 million Poles were deported, plus about one million killed. The poems were read in English while the translations appeared on the screen.  Deszczowy Chleb is a new 40-poem book with Polish translations of selected verse from The Rainy Bread. Now, that the Apocalyptic "Horse of War" has returned to this world with vengeance, it is good to remember the hunger, destitution, cold, and sorrow of deportees who lost a part of their souls with their beloved homes.                                             

    ~ Maja Trochimczyk, CSPS President

MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS HUNTING FOR SHARK'S TEETH

 BY RENEE BUTNER

 Hunting for Shark’s Teeth—Poems by Renee Butner.    

36 Poems ~ 45 pages. Lulu Press. ISBN #: 978-1-312-48589-1

Seamus Heaney, (1939-2013), a leading light in the world of poetry, had this to say about poets and their craft: “A poet is someone who feels, and who expresses her feelings through words. This may sound easy, but it isn’t.”

This quote came to mind during my journey through Hunting for Shark’s Teeth—Poems, by Renee Butner. I asked myself, “Why hasn’t this poet been on my radar screen before now?” Already an accomplished writer, Renee Butner’s work has appeared in a variety of fine journals. Sharks Teeth displays these poems plus new poems that highlight her talent.

The book is organized into four untitled sections: I. 11 poems; II. 8 poems; III. 8 poems; and IV. 9 poems. Butner opens each section with a modern haiku, a haiku  bookends the work.

Butner’s title speaks to me on different levels: the first is “sea-level.” The opening 11 poems take me specifically to the beach. My nostrils breathe salty air; aromas, sights, and sea-textures abound. On another level, I read Butner’s poems at the level of “hunting.” The title is catchy. But there is more. As poets we are constantly searching for life; we want to unearth life, we invest ourselves in life in and through our words. This is the work of poets. 

At Sea-level. The poet “had me from hello,” with “Ocean Pier”:

She meanders down a

twilight street;

digests the sweet, thick air.

Cicadas and crickets sing their

summer evening lullabies.

The heady thrill of salt melds

with balmy trade wind currents.

As they play a final game of tag

children’s voices hover

alongside he eternal background

reverberation of the sea.

She comes upon a

weathered pier projecting

over the bruising water . . .

a welcome provider of respite in the dusk.           

The air around Butner’s twilight pier is “thick and sweet.” Crickets and cicadas sing, I hear the sea’s “reverberations” rattling the pier. She puts me in the action. She does more than experience the air; she “digests” the air. The poet is fully ensconced in her surroundings, satisfied, whole and complete. Butner’s work shows skill with poetic devices: alliteration, consonance, internal rhyme, simile and metaphor abound. Her poems are predominantly free verse; without end-rhyme.

“Five Senses” imbibes “grains of sand” that stings, / a thousand needle prickles.” “Waves roar as they fold over / and crash against the shore / then fizzle back out to sea.” Other titillating titles in this section include: “Dirty Sneakers,” “Glorious Moon,” “Lavender Skies,” and “Sea Glass,” none of which disappoint.

Let’s Go Hunting. Butner is never far from the sea, which I sense is her first love. However, her interests go beyond the sea as primary metaphor. For example, “bits of blue eggshell” capture her attention and result in the poet contemplating morbidity. Is the baby bird tragically dead or might the shell fragments indicate some “natural progression / hatching, downy feathers” of a young bird learning to fly? Shark’s tooth #1.

“Butter” is about` the poet’s self-perception. What lies beyond the “Buttery  golden path” . . . “Does the aura surround me / Or has it fled / Into the bare branches / of the trees.” Shark’s tooth #2.

In “Daybreak Thunderstorm” Butner awakens to “rain gushing down the drainpipe / near my head / pounding on the roof / in sheets.” The eerie light flashings and thunderclaps frighten her puppy, but “her senses relish this abrupt awakening.” Shark’s tooth #3. Finally, “Jazz Notes” circles me back to Seamus Heaney’s dictum: “A poet is someone who feels, and who expresses her feelings through words. This may sound easy, but it isn’t.”

After a hard day, art, in the form of jazz captures a “mood,” brings the poet to herself within herself . . . where 

A lone horn sings out

Edgy and soulful

Leading the session several

Golden shimmering moments 

before backing off

To allow a bebop

walking bass line solo

Notes wrap around one another

Entwined in a dance

for the auditory sense

Jazz beat lines up with heartbeat

I relinquish myself to

the new pulse                                                                                                        

This poem, akin to unearthing that coveted shark’s tooth in the sand, the quest for something deeper, sparkles as she revolves its sharp edges in her fingers.

MICHAEL ESCOUBAS REVIEWS SILENT MARSHES BY TOM MORAN

Silent Marshes by Tom Moran 24 Poems ~ 36 pages Cyberwit.net ISBN #: 978-81-19654-67

For a moment Tom’s title, Silent Marshes, had me fooled. The title took me back to my Cajun roots in south Louisiana. There, “marsh” or “swamp” conjured tales of 15-foot alligators, a legendary swamp creature named “Monster Rougarou,” snakes, frogs, pirogues being poled down the bayou, cypress trees, hanging moss, and golden sunrises. These notions were soon disabused by the author. Tom was born and raised in the south side of Chicago, in a tough neighborhood. Tom’s “marsh” resembles gray, pock-marked concrete and families which cling to traditional values: hard work, church-going and loyalty. Marsh also means that invisible, often silent, space where one lives and navigates life’s challenges. 

     

My goal in this review is to highlight the heart of a mature poet whose latest collection gives voice to similar silent marshes many face in life. 

“Dialogue with a Muse” is about Tom’s feelings as he prepares to attend the prestigious Iowa Summer Writing Festival: “I’m inspired on the way. / Open up and feel again. / You pave over yourself / to hustle a buck. // What if the well goes dry? / Dig deeper. // How will I know if I’m any good? / A lump in your throat / before you speak.” Who among us hasn’t felt a twinge of self-doubt before we read our work? 

“Departure” returned me to my own mother’s bedside as her life slowly ebbed away . . . his airplane lifting off, is a poignant example of Tom’s silent marsh theme:

The heart monitor alarm beeps.

Skycaps rush in to

check her luggage.

Her flight is boarding.

She passes, chalk white.

White as the sheet

they cover her with.

White as the page

I write on,

white as the vapor trail

of her jet

than angles upward.

White as the spaces

in my life

when she would leave home

for months at a time.

The poet’s flight metaphor is perfect. By my count, five variations of “white” coalesce as Tom processes his loss. With a touch of irony he recalls times . . . “when she would leave home / for months at a time.”

Stylistically, Moran writes a relatively short line. This suits him. I was taught to use short steps when walking through wetlands, lest I sink into uncertain terrain. Within his lines, the poet treads carefully, searching for the right words to guide his next steps.

Speaking of steps, “Hitchhiker,” harmonizes both style and theme:

I pierce pinholes

in a piece

of black construction paper.

Hold the paper up

to the sunshine

because as a child,

I was told

that the stars

at night

is light

shining through from Heaven.

I pull away the paper,

smile at

the newness

of love

on my face.

I live

on the cusp

of two worlds,

one spiritual,

one Earth bound;

a hitchhiker

in the rain

who can’t run,

can’t hide,

and can’t make

it stop raining.

A soul in

a concrete world,

waiting on the day

I cut loose,

fly free.

Just as “Hitchhiker” reveals the poet’s journey down two roads “one spiritual / one earthbound,” he invites me to join him through the silent marshes of my life. “Vacancy” opens the heart of a youth who, “would play / in the bare spot / where her (his mother’s) car / should have been parked . . . a room vacant / in my heart / just in case / she returns.”

“Thanksgiving” captures the secret ruminations of a small boy. The poem opens a book of memories about how Tom’s father took him to a turkey farm to “pick one out.” Moments later, the turkey’s neck was snapped off, the bird, now in in a white box slides down a chute ready for the ride home. The poet wonders:

how will I

find my place

in this cement world,

where something

once alive is

butchered, boxed, and

laying in a back seat.

Silent Marshes is a thin volume consisting of twenty-four poems. Yet, it is pregnant with one man’s studied wisdom about life. That study is a journey ever-fresh, ever-renewing itself in truth. Gift yourself, order your copy today.

Etiuda (An Etude) by Maria Wollenberg-Kluza, oil on canvas.

TWO POEMS FROM THE RAINY BREAD BY MAJA TROCHIMCZYK

The Rainy Bread: More Poems from Exile is an expanded version of a poetry collection first published in 2016 and honored with the Creative Arts Prize by the Polish American Historical Association. The book includes 63 poems about forgotten stories of Poles living under the Soviet and German occupations during WWII, especially in the Eastern Borderlands of Kresy. They were killed, deported, imprisoned, or oppressed after the invasion of Poland by Germany on September 1, 1939 and by the Soviet Union on September 17, 1939. Some of these brief portraits capture the trauma and resilience, ordeals and miraculous survival stories of the author’s family, typical of Polish civilians. These fictionalized memories are coupled with depictions of survival of other Poles deported to Siberia, the Arctic Circle, or Kazakhstan; those left the Soviet Union with the Second Corps of the Polish Army under the command of General Władysław Anders; those who were transported to refugee camps in India or Africa; and ended up in Argentina, Canada, Australia or the U.S. The Polish version of 2024 includes 40 poems.

https://moonrisepress.com/trochimczyk---rainy-bread.html

https://moonrisepress.blogspot.com/2024/08/deszczowy-chleb-polish-version-of-40.html

Sisters Maria and Jadwiga Wasiuk, later Wajszczuk and Hordziejewska.

≡ ASTERS ≡

       ~ for my Great Aunt, Jadwiga Hordziejewska, neé Wasiuk    

         (1910-1997)

Her mother’s aunt, Ciocia Jadzia works in a kiosk in Oliwa

selling papers and razor blades in a ruined city 

of charcoal buildings and five-year plans 

She hides the best blades for her faithful clients 

in the kiosk on the way to the Cathedral 

 

where angels with puffy wooden cheeks 

triumphantly blow their golden trumpets 

walls and benches shake with the majesty of Bach

the gold-starred ceiling shimmers 

in summer evening cold 

 

The music of the seaside vacation heals the grey hours 

of the girl, sitting in the kiosk, selling matches and tickets 

after Ciocia Jadzia goes home to cook dinner 

for her silent husband, drunk artist son

 

She works — Uncle Dominik, a proud nobleman 

in a top hat and a black Sunday coat 

walks through Oliwa’s parks 

with his last, prize-winning Holstein cow

He grieves the loss of his estates — the life he had had 

before that fateful train ride from the East

 

He still sees the red-roofed manor with a white porch 

bronze oak leaves scattered on the gravel path

silver gray of Lake Świteź 

golden rye fields before the harvest

 

He walks home to rusty bricks  pocked by bullet holes,

smoke-dark hallways,  and a burst of color

in the courtyard  where asters tremble 

in last evening breeze —

a bouquet of fallen stars

≡ ASTRY ≡

~ Dla Ciotecznej Babci Jadwigi Hordziejewskiej z.d. Wasiuk

Ciocia Jadzia mojej Mamy ma kiosk w Oliwie. 

Sprzedaje gazety i żyletki w zrujnowanym mieście 

pełnym osmalonych budynków i planów pięcioletnich.

Chowa najlepsze ostrza pod ladą dla wiernych 

klientów w kiosku przy drodze do katedry. 

Tam drewniane aniołki z wydętymi policzkami

triumfalnie grają na złocistych trąbkach.

Tam mury i ławy trzęsą się w majestacie 

organów Bacha a złote gwiazdy na suficie 

migoczą w chłodnym powietrzu wieczoru. 

Muzyka to cud szarych godzin wakacji 

nad morzem, straconych godzin 

dziewczynki w kiosku, sprzedającej 

zapałki i bilety, gdy Ciocia Jadzia 

jest w domu i gotuje kolację dla milczka-męża,

pijanego syna-artysty z Bożej łaski.

Ona pracuje – a wuj Dominik, dumny szlachcic  

w cylindrze i niedzielnym tużurku spaceruje 

po parkach Oliwy z ostatnią, medalową krową

rasy Holstein. Wuj w milczeniu ubolewa 

nad utratą włości – i życia jakie pędził 

przed tragiczną jazdą pociągiem ze wschodu.

Stoi mu przed oczami czerwony dach dworu, 

biały ganek, brązowe liście dębu rozsypane 

na żwirze podjazdu, głęboka woda Świtezi, 

srebrne pola nieskoszonego żyta w środku lata. 

Wraca do mieszkania, do rdzawych cegieł

pokrytych ospą dziur od kul, przez korytarz 

osmalony dymem. Czeka go wybuch koloru 

w podwórku – astry tańczące na wietrze —  

bukiet upadłych gwiazd 

Letters of Father Feliks Wajszczuk (brother of Stanisław Wajszczuk, Maja Trochimczyk’s grandfather) from NAZI German camp for the clergy in Dachau to his mother in German-occupied Poland. One of the letters included his request for food to be sent in packages: slices of dark rye bread saturated with lard and individually wrapped. Nutritious, high-calory, and too ugly to be stolen. Helping the resistance since the beginning of the war, Feliks Wajszczuk was arrested after being denounced by a Polish traitor. He survived five years of incarceration, while being a subject of cruel and illegal “medical” experiments on lung capacity. Too ill to return to his parish after the war, he retired to a monastery in France.  Private collection of Barbara Miszta, Poland. 

≡ THE RAINY BREAD ≡

~ for Grandma Nina and Grandma Maria, 

because they baked delicious bread

Even if it softened, it fell into the mud

you need to rinse the slice. When it dries out —

it can be eaten.

And this round, fragrant loaf,

which Grandma baked with sourdough?

One bread loaf for a week — it was the best

with cream and sugar crystals.

And this moist, whole-rye bread baked with honey? 

Delicious with butter and — more honey.

After each bite, take a sip of cold milk.

And the war bread, made from leftover, dirty flour?

Worms removed through a sieve. With bran,

sawdust — even a pebble can be found

among grains of sand. But, there it is.

Finally, the bread from the parcels sent 

to Father Feliks, Mom’s uncle in Dachau.

It’s so ugly — no one would steal it.

Whole rye flour, thick slices saturated with lard — 

Today we know: microelements and calories, 

A guarantee of surviving five years of torture.

Give us today our daily bread —

    the daily bread —

            the rainy bread —

                    the bread of life —

                                      bread

≡ DESZCZOWY CHLEB ≡ 

 

   ~ dla Babci Niny i Babci Marii, bo piekły pyszny chleb

Nawet jeśli rozmiękł, upadł w błoto

trzeba kromkę wypłukać. Jak wyschnie —

da się zjeść.

A ten okrągły, pachnący bochenek,

który Babcia upiekła na zakwasie? 

Jeden chleb na tydzień — był najlepszy

ze śmietaną i kryształkami cukru.

A ten prawie wilgotny, razowy na miodzie?

Przepyszny z masłem i miodem — właśnie.

Po każdym kęsie, łyk zimnego mleka.

A ten wojenny, z resztek brudnej mąki?

Robaki odsiane przez sito. Z otrębami,

trocinami – nawet kamyk się trafi

wśród ziaren piasku. Jednak jest.

Wreszcie ten chleb z paczek wysłanych 

do Ojca Feliksa, Wuja Mamy, do Dachau. 

Szpetny — więc go nikt nie ukradł. 

Z pełnej żytniej mąki, grube pajdy

nasycone smalcem — dziś wiemy: 

mikroelementy i kalorie, gwarancja 

przeżycia pięciu lat tortur.

Chleba naszego powszedniego daj nam dzisiaj —

Deszczowy chleb — 

             codzienny chleb —

                          chleb życia — 

                                           chleb